"He saw us, and then he charged right towards us with something in his hands," Judy Napier told the Journal-News. "He probably didn't realize my husband is a retired construction worker who had a baseball bat."

Heaton Napier hit the suspect, later identified as 48-year-old Ted Marcum, on the head and in the ribs. It was enough for Marcum to run off, but officers caught up with him a few blocks away.

Heaton Napier said Marcum had stacked his tools by the garage door but never saw the $16 motion detector that foiled the theft.

"Seems like lately it's been a lot of young boys," she said. "They're flying down here trying to mess with one another. The young girls, a lot of prostitution."

The Napiers see the problems, too: Judy Napier said she was once hit in the eye during a robbery.

"Two years ago, they broke in here in the side and took every tool I had, and I'm tired of it," Heaton Napier said. "This is a high-crime area. The police can't do everything, so all of our neighbors have joined together to watch out for each other."